But I Don't WANT To Train My Dragon

People often comment that I'm a very positive person. That I'm inspiring. That I'm passionate while being laid back.

If they only knew the real story. 

The sordid truth is that I'm very good at depression. I'm very talented at being paralyzed from action and I'm much more intense and hard on myself internally than you would realize. This isn't something I am proud of by a long stretch. Very purposefully, I have learned and built ways to pull myself out of my head. It's been for the better, trust me. 

But there is also that raw, primal creator within me. It manifests when I decide to run after a new idea or project and attempt to breathe life into it's lungs. It's a fight which I will never retire from or retreat. This work matters to me and that's all that matters. 

That creator exists in the swirling storms and crashing waves of my other emotions. I imagine him living in a stone hut on a small circular island surrounded by a thrashing and angry grey sea. It is a place fraught with danger, yet he remains unmoved, because has learned to calm the storm. 

Armed with practices like meditation and gifts like perspective, he can calm the waters and let the sun color the clouds orange and purple. Then he can begin his work, brush stroke after brush stroke, word after word, note after note. 

But he knows that without the tempest, there could never be the creation in the calm. 

The conflict in me comes in wanting to banish the storm in me but keep the work. I believe that it's possible, but rarely see the results of those who have claimed to have calmed it. A piece of me doubts that they ever have, instead aggrandizing themselves for money, power, ego, or whatever. 


So, here's all I can do:

- Meditate
- Stay present
- Show up to work every day. No excuses. 
- Keep loving relationships to cultivate an ecosystem that is supportive to your spirit.
- Remember to find beauty and be grateful. Ditch the cynicism. 
- Celebrate. 
- Give yourself permission to enjoy being a human. 
- Eat well, stretch, workout. Practice the "living" part in living. 

It is a battle i'm happy to fight and keep fighting. But, for some reason, I'm really feeling it today. 


- M.